The evolution of the mobile phone and the development of handheld computers with wireless data capabilities has given rise to new challenges for managing content and services for mobile devices. Mobile devices have constrained resources such as memory, storage, and battery life, requiring sophisticated management of content between devices, networks, and other storage devices. Within these limitations, individuals appreciate the ability to customize their devices by changing such features as screen backgrounds and ring tones and acquiring content such as music, games and applications, photos, and the like. Employees need the ability to provision for themselves the content they need to do their jobs while in the field, and consumers need simple mechanisms for sharing content they originate, such as photos, with their family and friends.
Consumers' and employees' needs for simplicity and intuitiveness of use requires the use of personalization and context-dependent techniques in the delivery of content and services. The limited interaction, display, and bandwidth capabilities of mobile devices require techniques for filtering and personalization of content to end-users to avoid the frustrating and lengthy process of searching for relevant information. The process of acquiring suitable or optimized content for end-users such as consumers and employees is further complicated by the existence of diverse device styles, functions, form factors, interaction methods, software platforms, and capabilities. In addition, varying, intermittent, and simultaneous availability of differing network technologies (e.g., 2G, 2.5G, 3G, infrared, Bluetooth, wireless LAN, USB, etc.) having different costs, bandwidths, and qualities of service complicates the delivery of digital content and services and requires the use of technologies such as synchronization to ensure that content and services on intermittently connected devices are complete and up-to-date.
Other factors influence the difficulty of provisioning digital content and services to end-users. For example, the increasing complexity of wireless applications and data, the variety of media types, multiple content versions, competing digital rights mechanisms, and differing validation, certification, and ratings methods make it difficult to choose which items are suitable for which devices.
Mobile network operators increasingly have a stake in the administration of mobile devices in order to ensure the availability of their networks and users' abilities to make phone calls. Further, mobile network operators are involved in the flow of information between enterprises and enterprises' mobile workers, and operators must evolve new services to support and protect enterprises and enterprise assets.
The communications industry has seen incredible innovation in recent years. Many new modes of communication and content formats have been developed, allowing users access to information in increasingly complex and useful ways. At the same time, the process of communication has become disjointed, with several sources of information, such as telephones, fax machines, computers, and mobile devices, competing for users' attention, with little focus on the development of solutions that assure that the most relevant information is provided to users at the most opportune times.
Current approaches to the targeting, personalization, provisioning and management of mobile content and services have led to dissatisfaction among individual users, who find it difficult to receive data organized to fit their individual needs. In turn, communications providers face the loss of customers through “churn,” because current communications systems make it very difficult for providers to differentiate themselves from competitors based on ease-of-use and the pertinence and quality of delivered data.
As both end-users and system administrators deal with the complexities of emerging communication technologies, there exists a need for a comprehensive, easy-to-use system enabling the management and provisioning of digital content to a wide variety of different devices.